1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a wiring harness arrangement designing apparatus for designing the arrangement of wiring harnesses within a vehicle by using a wiring diagram and a route drawing, and a method therefor, and relates, more particularly, to a wiring harness arrangement designing apparatus for easily designing the arrangement of wiring harnesses according to a computer aided design (hereinafter referred to as CAD), and a method therefor.
2. Related Art
For arranging wiring harnesses within a vehicle, it has been a conventional practice that, at first, a route drawing for displaying a route of the arrangement of the wiring harnesses is prepared. This route drawing shows at what portions of the vehicle the wiring harnesses are to be disposed in order to confirm interference and space between other parts and the vehicle body in the actual vehicle, and this route drawing is prepared in accordance with graphics.
One example of a route drawing is shown in FIG. 1. On the route drawing shown in FIG. 1, portions indicated by thick lines express wiring harnesses 101. Joints 103 are connected between the wiring harnesses 101.
Within the vehicle, a plurality of auxiliary units such as terminals and connectors are disposed. As the plurality of auxiliary units are connected by a plurality of wires, a wiring diagram is prepared. This wiring diagram is the one for showing circuits of the vehicle, and the wiring diagram expresses only a relationship of connection between the circuits by disregarding the lengths and diameters of the wires.
FIG. 2 shows one example of a wiring diagram. The wiring diagram shown In FIG. 2 expresses the wiring of a head lamp system. A joint 103 is connected to one end of a first head lamp 107a through a first wire 105a, and the other end of the first head lamp 107a is grounded. Also, the joint 103 is connected to one end of a second head lamp 107b through a second wire 105b, and the other end of the second head lamp 107b is grounded.
There is no direct relationship between the wiring diagram and the route drawing thus prepared. Route information does not include any wiring information such as the number of passing wires, diameters of the wires, thickness of each wiring harness (diameter), or destination of each circuit.
Then, by referring to the prepared route drawing shown in FIG. 1 and the prepared wiring diagram shown in FIG. 2, the wires 105a and 105b, the joint 103, the first head lamp 107a and the second head lamp 107b are disposed along the route of the wiring harness 101. As a result, a substantive wiring diagram of a head lamp system is prepared as shown in FIG. 3.
In the above example, the substantive wiring diagram for only the headlamp system has been explained. However, in addition to the head lamp system there are various other kinds of systems mounted on the vehicle, such as an air bag system, an air conditioning system, an engine control system, an ABS system (an anti-lock braking system), etc. It has been a practice that a route drawing and a wiring diagram are prepared for each system, and a substantive wiring diagram is prepared for each system by using the route drawing and the wiring diagram prepared.
Further, the type of a vehicle and wiring information such as the position of a wiring harness have been understood by summing up each information after preparing a drawing of the wiring harness. Further, each type of specification has been extracted from the substantive wiring diagram of each circuit.
However, according to the above-described conventional method, as the wiring diagram and the route drawing are prepared manually for each system, and the substantive wiring diagram is prepared for each system by using the prepared wiring diagram and route drawing, considerable time has been required for this preparation work.
Further, as it is not possible to understand the thickness of a wiring harness on the route by looking at each substantive wiring diagram, a designer has calculated the thickness of the wiring harness based on the designer""s experience or intuition judging from the kind of a passing wiring.
Further, when the position of an auxiliary unit has been changed to another position, it has not been possible to easily understand how the wiring arrangement and the thickness of the wiring harness have been changed following this positional change.
Furthermore, as various pieces of information of the wiring harness have been collected or summed up by looking at each substantive wiring diagram, it has taken considerable time for this summing up work.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a wiring harness arrangement designing apparatus capable of designing an arrangement of wiring harnesses in a short time and reducing the load of a designer, and a method therefor.
In order to achieve the above object, there is provided a wiring harness arrangement designing apparatus comprising: route information inputting means for inputting route information including route drawing Information on routes of a plurality of wiring harnesses to be arranged within a vehicle and route length information of each wiring harness; wiring information memory means for storing wiring information including auxiliary unit information on a plurality of auxiliary units connected to the plurality of wiring harnesses and wire information on attributes of a plurality of wires connected between the plurality of auxiliary units; display means for displaying on a screen a route drawing based on the route information input by the route information inputting means; position assigning means for assigning positions of the plurality of auxiliary units on the route drawing displayed on the screen based on the auxiliary unit information included in the wiring information stored by the wiring information memory means; and route/wiring linking means for mutually wire-connecting the plurality of auxiliary units of which positions have been assigned by the position assigning means through a selective route on the route drawing, and for linking the wiring information on the plurality of wire-connected auxiliary units to the route information on the selected route.
According to the above embodiment, when the route information inputting means has input route information including route drawing information on routes of a plurality of wiring harnesses to be arranged within a vehicle and route length information of each wiring harness, the display means displays on a screen a route drawing based on the route information input by the route information inputting means. When the position assigning means has assigned positions of the plurality of auxiliary units on the route drawing displayed on the screen based on the auxiliary unit information included in the wiring information stored by the wiring information memory means, the route/wiring linking means mutually wire-connects the plurality of auxiliary units of which positions have been assigned by the position assigning means through a selective route on the route drawing, and links the wiring information on the plurality of wire-connected auxiliary units to the route information on the selected route. In other words, as the substantive wiring diagram having the wiring information added to the route information is prepared, it is not necessary to manually prepare the substantive wiring diagram. As a result, it is possible to design the arrangement of the wiring harness in a shorter time, which alleviates the load of the designer.
According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the route/wiring linking means wire-connects a pair of auxiliary units to be connected, out of the plurality of auxiliary units assigned by the position assigning means, in a shortest route through at least one route on the route drawing, and generates substantive wiring information having the wiring information linked to the route information.
According to the above embodiment, as the route/wiring linking means wire-connects a pair of auxiliary units to be connected, out of the plurality of auxiliary units assigned by the position assigning means in a shortest route through at least one route on the route drawing, and generates substantive wiring information having the wiring information linked to the route information, it is possible to carry out an efficient designing of the arrangement of the wiring harness.
According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the wiring harness arrangement designing apparatus further comprises substantive wiring information memory means for storing the substantive wiring information generated by the route/wiring linking means, and the substantive wiring information memory means stores wire-connection information for showing wire-connection from one auxiliary unit to the other auxiliary unit through at least one route on the route drawing as the substantive wiring information, and also stores the wire information by making the wire information correspond to the wire-connection information.
According to the above embodiment, as the substantive wiring information memory means stores wire-connection information for showing wire-connection from one auxiliary unit to the other auxiliary unit through at least one route on the route drawing as the substantive wiring information, and also stores the wiring information by making this information correspond to the wire-connection information, it is possible to link the route information to the wire information.
According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the wiring harness arrangement designing apparatus further comprises route selecting means for selecting any one route from within a plurality of routes on the route drawing displayed on the screen; and summing means for reading out the wire information corresponding to the one route selected by the route selecting means based on the information of said at least one route in the wire-connection information stored in the substantive wiring information memory means and summing up the number of wires based on the read out wire information.
According to the above embodiment, when the route selecting means has selected any one route from within a plurality of routes on the route drawing displayed on the screen, the summing means reads out the wire information corresponding to the one route selected by the route selecting means based on the information of at least one route in the wire-connection information stored in the substantive wiring information memory means, and sums up the number of wires based on the read out wire information. Therefore, it is possible to carry out the designing of the arrangement of the wiring harness in a shorter time, which alleviates the load of the designer.
According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the summing means sums up the lengths of wires between auxiliary units based on the information of the length of a wire of each route, the coordinates of a starting point and an ending point of each route the coordinates of a route connection point on a route to which an auxiliary unit is connected, and the length of a wire from the route connection point to the auxiliary unit.
According to the above embodiment, the summing means sums up the lengths of wires between auxiliary units based on the information of the length of a wire of each route, the coordinates of a starting point and an ending point of each route, the coordinates of a route connection point on a route to which an auxiliary unit is connected, and the length of a wire from the route connection point to the auxiliary unit. Therefore it is possible to carry out the designing of the arrangement of the wiring harness in a shorter time, which alleviates the load of the designer.
According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the summing means calculates the diameter of the wiring harness based on the number of wires summed up and the diameter of each wire.
According to the above embodiment, as the summing means calculates the diameter of the wiring harness based on the number of wires summed up and the diameter of each wire, it is possible to carry out the designing of the arrangement of the wiring harness in a shorter time, which alleviates the load of the designer.
According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the summing means sums up the total number of wires of the whole routes on the route drawing based on the wire-connection Information and the wire information stored in the substantive wiring information memory means.
According to the above embodiment, as the summing means sums up the total number of wires of the whole routes on the route drawing based on the wire-connection information and the wire information stored in the substantive wiring information memory means, it is possible to carry out the designing of the arrangement of the wiring harness In a shorter time, which alleviates the load of the designer.
According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the display means displays the wiring information linked to the route information, on the same screen as the screen on which the route drawing based on the route information is displayed.
According to the above embodiment, as the display means displays the wiring information linked to the route information, on the same screen as the screen on which the route drawing based on the route information is displayed, the designer can look at collected various information on the wiring harness while looking at the substantive wiring diagram.
Further, in order to achieve the above object of the invention, there is provided a wiring harness arrangement designing method, comprising: a route information inputting step for inputting route information including route drawing information on routes of a plurality of wiring harnesses to be arranged within a vehicle and route length information of each wiring harness: a storing step for storing in wiring information memory means wiring information including auxiliary unit information on a plurality of auxiliary units connected to the plurality of wiring harnesses and wire information on attributes of a plurality of wires connected between the plurality of auxiliary units: a displaying step for displaying on a screen a route drawing based on the route information input; a position assigning step for assigning positions of the plurality of auxiliary units on the route drawing displayed on the screen based on the auxiliary unit information included in the wiring information stored in the wiring information memory means; and a route/wiring linking step for mutually wire-connecting the plurality of auxiliary units of which positions have been assigned through a selective route on the route drawing, and for linking the wiring information on the plurality of wire-connected auxiliary units to the route information on the selected route.
The nature, principle and utility of the invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.